The All Out Nation NotSoVacation
by oneinsanenutjob
Summary: Alfred decides to take ALL the nations on a road trip vacation across the states. He claims it's all in good fun but Arthur's determined to get him to cough up the real reason; No real pairings but will poke at all of them. T mostly for future violence
1. Chapter 1

**So after all my mind has come up with in the world of what your mind does after reading something with cliff hanger and ending-less awesome-sauce (coughromahetacough), I thought I'd try my hand at fanfiction. Honestly, the idea came to me in the car today. Don't ask how, I'm not entirely sure. But it seemed kinda awesome to me and I figured I wright if for the awesomeness of slipping some drama into hetalia (and the lulz).**

**Please note that I don't necessarily ship any pairing in particular as I'm not the worlds biggest yaoi fanatic (not much of one at all, actually. don't ask how I got into hetalia) so if this gets anywhere with a pairing you like in some sort of messed up way, don't thank me, thank the crack that people must be slipping into my supply of chocolate milk. **

**Anyway, I do not own Hetalia or any of the Hetalia characters, just this plot idea (and I'm not even sure about that).**

**any hoodles, enjoy :D**

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**Part I: The East Coast**

The monitors were alive with the images of news feeds - new and old - creating a massive blurr to anyone who tried to watch more than one at once. To one who looked one at a time, though, they would see images of past, rulers, dictators, prime ministers, and former presidents. But it was not the focus of the camera shots these men were focused on.

"Always there," one finally spoke. "Always there in the background. For centuries they have had the most influential positions in the world, and none have even bothered to notice...till now."

The man's eyes rested on a single gathering of monitors. From black and white to high-definition: the Presidents of the United States. As the people around the man, and the man himself, changed, one man remained constant. The same blond hair, blue eyes, glasses, and an air that radiated self confidence.

"None have even _questioned _the fact that their very existence is ludicrous; questioned that they're only revealed to the people of utmost importance, even if they aren't necessarily a secret," another man said without removing his gaze from the man that has stood behind generations of Queens and Prime Ministers: a man with sandy hair, green eyes, and some of the largest eyebrows known to mankind to pair with his gaze that suggested he could see more than meets the eye.

"Even those with the knowledge don't even seem to care, letting themselves and their government be pushed around by these...existences."

This third man watched as documentaries flashed paintings and writings mentioning and picturing - still in the background - a man with dark eyes and hair, commonly swept over his shoulder in a small ponytail. Occasionally he was featured with a small boy with empty-seeming eyes and evenly cropped hair: yet _another _of these monstrosities.

"Now," one of the six men turned to the rest to speak, "this long era of shadow ruling will end." His statement was met by much nodding and murmurs of agreement. "Finally we have found a way to eliminate these so called 'personifications' without the people suffering first. Finally we have found the method that will bring them ill and too their knees."

With that, the men filed out of the small room to further discuss their plans for their 'revolution'. One man, however, lagged behind in the hall way. Slipping through a side hall, he pulled out his disposable phone and pressed the call button. The phone dialed the only number it could and the other end picked up immediately.

"It's starting, sir," the man told his boss on the other end of the line. "It's only a matter of days now."

"Thanks, Mikey."

Alfred gave his short response and hung up the phone, knowing that Westin would promptly trash the other.

The blond ran a hand through his hair, without a care in the world about whether doing such would eventually speed up hair loss, nations don't bald. Wang Yao was living proof. Alfred focused his blue eyes out the window of _his _bosses office. Not a cloud in the sky...just like that horrid day almost a decade ago...he shook the memory from his thoughts. They were after him, not his people.

"Well?" his boss asked him, patiently.

"Make the calls," he told him. "It's starting."

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Arthur sighed and leaned back in his seat. The plane had taken off moments ago and Kirkland was already begining to have second thoughts.

Alfred had invited him and all the other nations over to his place for some sort of 'All-Out Nation Vacation', as he called it. The flight he was on would pick up most of the European nations before finally making the trek over the ocean to North America. Ivan and most of the Nordic nations (minus Feliks and Toris, Feliks didn't like how dull the plane was and insisted on one with flowers) were already on board and they were about to pick up Francis. How would he ever last more than twenty minutes on the plane with him? Let alone over a dozen _hours_?

What did Alfred want them all for anyway? He'd even gone far enough to invite nation's he wasn't very friendly with - _IVAN _was on board.

He had claimed that this was all for being able to relax and act like semi-normal people for a change, instead of having to make friends depending on who their bosses liked, but Arthur wasn't quite buying it. Why was this so important that they all had to leave the day after he arranged it?

Arthur sighed again. At least he wouldn't have to be anywhere near the nations he didn't like while on board the plane - it had two stories and separate rooms for each of them. That, and this 'Nation Vacation' was going to be a trip to some of the most beautiful places in America. Kirkland had to admit, his former colony had _a lot _of those.

Leaning back into his seat, the well aged (even if he didn't look it) nation leaned back in his seat and watched his land go by beneath them. Not too long from now Fracis would be boarding. Followed by the German brothers - Gilbert and Ludwig - with their Belgium and Netherland neighbors. Then Heracles and Sadiq - _that _would be interesting. Then Feliciano and Lovino...

Arthur fell asleep to his thoughts. Maybe a vacation would be nice...

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**Sorry if that felt short, I promise to get more up soon. Prologue-ish things are usually kinda short anyway...in my experience at least.**

**I know I'm a crappy speller and i hope that anything spell check missed doesn't turn anyone away. Again, this is my first real fanfic so i need all the help i can get from those with experience. Reviews would be mucho appreciated. **

**And to those of you who didn't get the Burn Notice reference, then you do have a serious problem and should watch a bit more American TV. Particularly USA. Awesome channel. **


	2. Chapter 2

**I seem to be in a typing mood today. Ah well. It doesn't feel like this is much longer than the other one...but maybe that's just me. Hard to judge what you write yourself I guess. Or maybe this'll be one of those 'lots of small, frequently posted chapters' kind of things. i guess that's better than long chapters with huge cliff hangers that come out once a month... I guess.**

**Anyway, enough of my guessing.**

**I don't own hetalia or any of the characters, I just post the stuff my brain comes up with while thinking of them. No way would I be able to think up characters with this level of awesomeness. **

**

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**Matthew decided he didn't like New York much. Vancouver was cool, it was a decent sized city but it had this nice lacking of every other guy on the street packing heroin or pirated DVDs or a coat full of watches. Sure, there were some people like that in Canada too, but somehow it didn't feel as...present. So Matthew was pretty OK with picking a cafe on the edge of the Melting Pot city, close to the airport where the planes holding the other nations would land.

Antonio sat across from him in the cafe, going on and on about how Lovino would be there soon and how cute little Feli would run up to him shouting '_Fratello _Antonio! _Fratello _Antonio!'

Antonio had already been in the states when Alfred's people had called. Something about 'shameful, horrible, and disgusting _'italian' _restaurants' that would have set his favorite twins into a downward spiral that would have ended horribly for America. He claimed to be doing Alfred a favor, but all he was doing was driving the managers of Olive Gardens everywhere crazy and showing some rodeo fanatics how to truly handle a creature as marvelous as the bull.

Matthew, on the other hand, had simply hopped in a jet from Vancouver and gotten their about six hours ago. Cuba would be there right now too, but he decided it was too cold and decided to wait in the hot tub at the hotel.

"You know, Antonio," the quiet nation finally spoke up, "The idea of having a young nation to have as a 'henchmen' and flip out over must be appealing to you older nations, but to those of us who suffered through the experience from the other side, we'd rather it went...well...unmentioned."

Antonio stared at him for a second, as if processing the fact that he was really there and actually said something before saying, "But having someone adore you like that must be great!" he protested. "Why else would Lovi stick around for so long?"

"Maybe because you fed him, gave him a room, and gave him the luxury of being away from his brother..." Matthew muttered under his breath, remembering his own time as a colony.

After a few more minutes of ranting about the Italian brothers and yet another cup of coffee, Antonio began to stare intensely at his cell phone, which lay on the table in front of him. He had explained a few times (an even dozen, actually) that Feliciano had promised to text him right when they landed - which was supposed to be 45 seconds ago - the time on the front had just changed to 4:32. Yes. The crazy Spaniard had actually calculated their trip down to the minute. Maybe he was crazy, maybe he was over protective of his 'henchman'.

_No, its not just him_, Matthew thought to himself while taking another sip of coffee. _It's just that the guy's freaking European_. He looked from his single cup of coffee to Antonio's seven-times refilled cup. _Or it's the caffeine hitting him_.

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"If you want your phone so bad, come get it!" Gilbert stood on the opposite end of the runway from Feliciano and dangled the fairly ditsy nations phone above his head.

"Ve~"

The Italian began to run (well, it was more of a prancing-hopping combination) across the pavement towards the used-to-be Prussian. Gilbert, of course, had every intention of giving the phone back to Feli...never at any point however did he say he wouldn't have a little fun first.

As soon as Feliciano was a few steps away from him, Gilbert would sidestep and run away a couple yards as Feli lifted his face of the ground.

"Gilbert~," the Italian complained, "I've got to text _Fratello _Antonio and let him know we landed!"

"I honestly don't understand why you don't just come over and get it," Gilbert teased. "Seriously, It's not like I'm _running away _or anything."

"_Bruder_, stop picking on him," Ludwig scolded. "Wasn't twelve straight hours of teasing him enough?"

"Obviously not," Lovino mumbled. He stood with Ludwig next to the plane as the others began filling off down the stairs onto the runway. Neither of them particularly enjoyed watching their brothers' 'games', but neither of them really cared enough to do anything about it. Lovino flipped his cell phone shut. "Hey, Feliciano! I've already sent a text Antonio, you can stop now!"

Feliciano turned from where he sat on all fours after he tried to grab his phone back again. "Ve~...OK!" The Italian quickly went through another mood changed and abandoned his chase for his phone all together to prance back to where Ludwig stood.

"Hey!" Gilbert shouted. "Quit ruining my fun!" He glared his red eyes at Lovino till he made his way back over and handed him Feliciano's phone. "I was just playing around. What else am I going to do in this..._unawesome _place?"

"Hey!" The group of nations turned to see who had spoken. "Who are you calling 'unawesome'?"

Alfred strutted down the runway to where his visitors stood waiting, bomber jacket and all. Arthur came off the plane and mumbled something about how he had no idea as to 'how the boy had become such a bloody moron...under _his _care, no less'. A spit ball then proceeded to plant itself on his forehead.

"Anyway," Alfred continued as if no one had said anything, twirling a milkshake straw between his fingers, "I figured I'd give you all a day to get rid of jet lag and then we can be on our way! The flight from Asia should be here in about and hour. Feliks and Toris came here via pink military jet a few hours ago. Said something about New York fashion boutiques and ran off. I've got hotel rooms for all of you if you want them." He held up a folder of room keys and directions and started handing them out. When he reached Francis and Arthur he said, "No, I did not put you in the same hotel. You're not even on the same side of the city."

"Thank you, mon cher," Francis accepted his key and directions. "Can I expect a five star room?"

"Psh, heck no!" Alfred laughed, his self confident grin still on his face, "All the good hotels are on the side of town where my little bro Mattie's staying. So obviously you guys get the three star motels on the outskirts!"

"Wha-what did you do that for?" Kirkland shouted.

Alfred made a pouty face, "Well neither of you wanted to be anywhere near each other. And Matt didn't want to be near Francis more than he had to, too. So I compromised! See? This is how the HERO works through relationship issues!"

Alfred walked away laughing at his ingeniousness, leaving Francis to comment, "You know, Arthur, you raised a moron."

"Shut up, you twat!"

"Will...will _bruder_ and I be in the same hotel?" Lili asked.

"Oh, of course!" Alfred assured. "Everyone else is on the same block!"

"Then it's just us?" Francis and Arthur shouted at the same time.

Spit balls found their way to both the former empires heads.

After he was done handing out hotel keys, Alfred turned to the group in general again. "So I'll have cars come pick you up tomorrow morning so we can get going. For now, enjoy the American food, check out Broadway, see a movie, go shopping, don't get too drunk, and have some fun! Oh, and avoid taking taxis as much as possible. They're worse than walking in most cases."

Lovino looked up from his phone, "Antonio says in a cafe with Matthew a few blocks away. I want nothing more than to not go but...he's had eight cups of coffee..."

"So?" Ludwig turned away from where England and France were seconds away from beating the crap out of each other.

"So...last time he had that much caffeine..." Lovino's mood seemed to dropping incredibly fast. His face got a pit pinker than normal too. Ludwig figured it was a matter of time before was sulking in a corner again. It had happened several times on the plane already. He head the Italian start swearing under his breath.

"Ne, _Fratello_?" Feliciano poped back up out of nowhere, like he normally does. "_Fratello _Antonio told me they have a place here that sells awesome pizza! Maybe he could show us~! Let's go find him~!"

At the mention of pizza Lovino seemed to snap out of his momentary depression and started booking it toward the luggage cars. "For the foreign tomatoes. That's the only reason. The tomatoes." He seemed to be trying to convince himself more than the people around him. His 'younger' brother floated after him.

The two Germanic brothers stood there for another moment before finally speaking again. "What are the odds they have some sort of personality disorder?" Ludwig asked.

"Pretty high." Gilbert responded, absent-mindedly, fiddling with his key. "I'd say Lovi's bipolar. You?"

Ludwig leafed through a mental list of the possibilities before dismissing the topic. "So, what are you going to do?"

"About Lovi being bipolar? I don't know, have they tried whapping them upside the head yet?"

Ludwig rolled his eyes. "No, _bruder_, not about Lovi being bipolar."

"Head to my hotel and hope Roderich isn't in the same one. Want to come with?"

"Hm...maybe I'll just go sight seeing."

"OK, but don't come crying to me when the jet lag hits you."

"I'll be fine. Will you be OK?"

Gilbert looked up. "What do you mean?"

"What if Elizaveta's in the same hotel?"

A moment's silence.

"I-I'll be fine," he answered a bit nervously. "It's not like she can make it into my room...with that...freakish demon frying pan..."

"I'm heading off, then," Ludwig said before walking off. The Prussian waved him off and wiped a hand over his forehead and let out a cough.

If spring was just starting here...then why did he feel so hot?

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**Phew. Brain has been worked. Typing the seemingly insignificant parts seems harder than writing the significant parts...that shall be a mental note for later *writes on hand***

**In cased you haven't noticed, I'm trying to slip little tid bits of their own languages in there. _Fratello _meaning along the lines of big brother (or onii-san to all my fellow anime fanatics), and _bruder _being pretty much the same. and then there'****s England. Oh, England. **

**And to any of you reading who are European, I mean no offense. Canada, however I cannot speak for. He may have meant offense (Canada: HEY!). What? Did someone say something? *sweat drops* Oh well. I'm sure its nothing to worry about.**

**Thanks for suffering though anything spell check missed and the worlds lack of grammar check. I try to read back through it but I'm not perfect. Reviews are much appreciated.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry about the delay! I finally figured out how to get around the 'error type 2' thing. I probably would have figured that out faster though if I hadn't cought a cold. *sniffles***

**Anyway, I do not own hetalia or any of its many splendors, I just find enjoyment in typing out my crazed thoughts about it. I hope you enjoy them too *japan-style bow of politeness* ah...Ah...ACHOOOO!...*sniffle***

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**Back at the cafe, Antonio was having a spaz attack.

"Lovi texted me! Lovi texted me! Lovi texted me! Lovi texted me! Lovi texted me! Lovi texted me! Lovi texted me! Lovi texted me! Lovi texted me!" The Spaniard jumped in circles around the small table as Matthew proceeded to flip through Antonio's inbox. One single message was in it. It read:

We landed -Lovi

That was it.

Matthew failed to understand this guys excitement.

He still figured it was the twelve cups of coffee.

After his 'miraculous' text from Lovino, Antonio had followed up by typing a seven page message - in only 48 seconds - about where he was, how to get there and asking what kind of coffee he wanted - accompanied by the entire menu of the cafe. In his post-text excitement, the green-eyed nation had dropped his phone and left Matthew to pick it up and put the battery back in.

The phone vibrated and Matthew saw another message pop into the inbox - also from Lovino.

The Canadian glanced over his shoulder as to see if the Spaniard had seen his second message yet - he hadn't, as he was now coaching the guy behind the counter in the best way to make coffee for Lovino...with tomatoes. _Seriously_, Matthew thought, _he must like _something _other than tomatoes_.

Satisfied that he wouldn't have a crazy guy snatch the phone back out of his hand and give him a good heart attack in the process, Matthew opened the message:

FOR THE TOMATOES - Lovino

_..._

_I have been proved wrong. Clearly, all they care about is tomatoes._

At that moment, the door burst open. Matthew and Antonio tore their focus away from what they were doing to watch Feliks - donned with New York's newest styles - drag a very tired looking Toris through the door.

"I need, like, a mega espresso for my man Toris, stat!" Feliks declared, sitting Toris into a chair next to Matthew. "Start it off black then mix it _Italian _style! If you don't know what that is, then you're, like, officialy fired by whoever runs this crap-hole!"

"To-toris," Matthew leaned over the elder nation that had slumped himself against the table counter and seemed to me slipping of his chair with the kind of exhaustion you only see in Kiku's anime, "Are you OK?"

To the Canadians disappointment, however, his 'invisibility' would not be light on him today, and he went ignored while the crazed Polish man began duking it out with Antonio over who's coffee should get priority. Only Matthew noticed that the guy behind the counter had locked himself in the bathroom - and he only noticed because the guy happened to be Canadian.

"I was here first, and Lovi needs his coffee!" Antonio was arguing. "Have you seen him on jet lag? No, I didn't think so."

"Please, Toris, like, totally needs a pick me up," Feliks was countering. "I mean, look at him!" Feliks made a large hand gesture to the table where Matthew was just barely keeping Toris from slumping straight to the floor. Antonio had to admit, this guy (or is 'he' a 'she'? He thought 'he' was a 'he') had a point...not like was going to say that out loud.

"T-toris?" Matthew was still trying to get a conscious response out of the downward-spiraling nation but he wouldn't respond properly. He just continued mumbling something about 'damn American gay bars...' Matthew clumsily sat Toris up in his seat and grabbed what was left of his coffee. Trying to figure out how exactly to go about this as he went, he lifted the cup up to Toris' mouth. "Here," he tried, "its not _that _bad."

The Lithuanian groggily lifted the cup to his mouth and took a huge gulp, downing what was left in the cup. "Pah~," the nation sat up and blinked, "I never could understand how Alfred downed so much of this. He practically lived off the stuff...when he wasn't eating his precious Mc*bleep*nlds.

Two seconds later the door burst open, almost falling off its hinges, with a door slam that only Lovino in incredible stress could produce.

"Oi, Antonio!" he demanded, dragging his younger twin into the restaurant, a goofy grin plastered on the northern half's face.

The named Spaniard turned from his [no-longer-necessary-]argument with Feliks to gaze happily at the new comers and let out a gasp of utter joy. "FELI~ LOVI~!"

Antonio made a dash of incredible speed toward the front of the small cafe and it was a miracle Lovino managed to do this in time: "_**STOP**_!" Lovino raised the hand that was not holding his practically-levitating-with-aloofness-brother right into Spain's face. "Touch me just _**once **_before that caffeine wares off and you're paying for every tomato-related product I buy on this trip."

The other nations made a gasp of unison shock and watched intensely as Antonio began to sweat with the weight of this huge decision. Love on Lovi now, or face billions of dollars in tomatoes... Our most loved Spanish man has always been one to spend as much as needed on his colonies...but...Alfred did have a very LARGE nation...all those tomatoes...and how many trucks would it take to carry; how many planes to tack back to Italy? But he couldn't _live _without his Lovi...

Sweat was practically streaming from Antonio now, and it would have been a very serious-looking situation if only they would move even in inch. Antonio stood frozen with his arms out and one foot off the ground and Lovino still stood with his arm fully extended, stopping any progression he might try, even if he _would _pay for all that tomato merchandise.

After a few more seconds, Lovino broke stance slightly to poke Antonio on the forehead, who promptly proceeded to fall over like a statue. Still deciding whether or not to waste all his life(which had been fairly long) savings.

Completely ignoring the distress he just caused, Lovino decided to target the first nation that came to his attention. Unfortunately, that was Feliks. "You!" he shouted. "I was told there was some awesome pizza in this city. And since Antonio's temporarily...out of commission, you tell me."

"Like, why should I have to tell you?" Feliks asked. "Sure, I've already seen most of the joint already, but what do I care about your precious pizza? Besides, you two's outfits, like, totally clash," Feliks gestured to the Italian brothers. Both were wearing Italian designer _everything - _even the _underwear - _that matched in every aspect except for color - Lovino's shirt was green and Feliciano's was red - that the average billionaire teenage girl would die for.

"Ve~?" Feliciano seemed to finally start paying attention. "But...I designed these..."

Matthew and Toris froze. First Antonio, now this. If Feliks continued saying that the outfits were bad, not only would Lovino beat the crud out of him - he helped design them too, but Feliciano would go and get Ludwig and Kiku. Which would in turn trigger Gilbert. Who would get Francis. And _no one _wanted Francis dragged into this; or anything for that matter. But there was also no way Feliks could bring himself to lie about his fashion opinion. Thus he stood there mutely frozen, trying desperately to find a way out and to no avail.

So not only had Lovino completely immobilized two fairly large nations in two moves, but he had also landed himself a 25% discount as his shirt was green and it was St. Patrick's day.

Of course not that any of this mattered because Feliciano had taken to poking Antonio repeatedly with a coffee stirring stick he plucked out of one of 7 coffee cups on the table (Ve~. Ve~. Ve~.) and the coffee guy was still no where to be seen (a.k.a. the bathroom).

Lovino swore in the face of the now-frozen Polish 'man' and turned back to where Antonio fell onto the floor. "Well, I guess we'll have to find this ourselves. Let's go, _fratellino_."

Feliciano looked up from his poking, said "OK~!", and floated back over to Lovino.

"Oh, and if you see Matthew," Lovino turned before he walked out (Mattie cried a little inside), "Tell him Alfred wanted to meet him by that...giant mungotron on...y'know? That one street...? YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!" Lovino turned again, face resembling a tomato more that it had before.

But, of course, they were not one step out the door when a large force decided to land itself on top of them.

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Ludwig stood with Kiku in front of the Empire State Building. It's not like it was the tallest building on planet earth, but people came to see it anyway...though Ludwig had to admit it was a nice looking building.

"Alfred took me around the city once," Kiku was telling him. "I think I remember most of what he told and showed me. This was our first stop. I will try to go in order from there, as to miss as little as possible."

"Sure," Ludwig replied, snapping a picture for Gilbert. "_Wenn du willst_."

Kiku pulled out a map. "If I remember correctly, if we go-"

Just then a resounding "_**CHIGIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!**_" could be heard all across Long Island.

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**Oh, Lovi and your directions *fangirl* (Yes, I do realize that it will be pretty much impossible to not ship _something_, _somewhere_, at _somepoint_. I will try my best to suit all people tho, as really don't have much of a pairing to suit myself with. BUT I'M TOTALLY OK WITH THAT I DONT NEED A SPECIFIC FANDOM DONTDRAFT/HURTME!)**

**It feels as this was mostly a random crap chapter...oh well. It was the best my sickly brain could come up with. It'll get better soon, I promise[hope]. **

**I threw the St. Patricks day thing in there just for the lulz. _That _and because _I_ didn't wear a green shirt, I didn't get _my _25% off_. _But that shouldn't mean Lovi can't get his.**

**For those who don't speak German, Wenn du willst means 'If you want'. oratleastthatswhatbingtoldme-ANYWAY. **

**If you don't know about Italian coffee...well, lets just say we now know what to drink if we need to be up for the next couple months or so.**

**To those of you who don't know of Mc*bleep*nlds...you should be ashamed to call yourselves Hetalia fans. Look it up. NAO**

**I will read all the reviews you post as I love them and hold them all dear to me, as I see it as a sign that I'm not completely crazy (or at least not alone, anyway)**

**Again I apologize for any spelling mishaps. I apologize. I APOLOGIZE TO THE _WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORLD_! (chochip cookies to whoever gets that)**


	4. Chapter 4

"And he bought seven larges with extra sauce! _Seven_!" Antonio's distressed voice echoed around the large room. It would have been enough to get complaints from everyone in the room - if they hadn't already left. He splashed at the hot tub water, as if it was its fault that his boss was going to kill him when they got back. "I mean, as much as I enjoy spending time with little Lovi, this is going to be a looong vacation."

"Be glad we get a vacation at all, _mon cher_," Francis chastised from his lounge chair. He had managed to sneak into the hotel - with help - to use the pool, as his motel had none. Gilbert had convinced him that he would only get discovered faster if he came in with nothing but his rose, so they got him some rose patterned swim trunks. "This is my first real break in a good 500 years."

"I've practically been on break since that whole 'Berlin Wall' thing," Gilbert spoke up from next to Antonio. "West gets landed with all the hard stuff, I just sit back and be awesome. Not like that actually takes _effort_." Gilbert took another swig from his beer bottle. "Man, captain _does _know best."

"Well lucky you," Francis almost spat. "But don't go and try and tell me you've never had problems too. I don't care how much of the nation you are, the bosses wreck things for everybody sometimes." Images of guillotines and a certain Antoinette flashed through his mind.

"Lovi says it's boring not being able to make much of a difference sometimes," Antonio mentioned. "Complains about how Feli's been getting more influence than him or something. It's our job to make sure our bosses are doing things right, y'know?"

"Feli is a bit air headed sometimes," Gilbert mumbled.

"But we're on _vacation _now!" Antonio perked up again. "We're going to be able to go on vacation like _regular _people! Make fun of politicians like _regular _people!"

"Don't we do that already?" Gilbert asked.

"We're going to spend all day eating junk food and watching movies like _regular _people!"

"I did that last week," Gilbert commented.

"And we're going to PARTY CRASH and like GET DRUNK like _REGULAR PEOPLE_!" The overexcited Spaniard stood up out of the water, showing off his tomato swim shorts.

"Now you're talking!" Cheered Gilbert, taking another swig out of his bottle.

"You gave him the box of Red Bull you found in your hotel fridge, didn't you?" Francis asked, looking directly at Gilbert.

"So what if I did?" Gilbert smirked. "It's practically his anyway. I mean, its called Red _Bull_."

"And man it is a mighty kicking bull, _amigo_!" Antonio cheered, cannon balling into the pool.

"Oh, nothing, _mon cher_," Francis shrugged, sitting up and reaching for his wine bottle. "It's just that there's a bachelor party going on on the fifth floor."

"Sweet!" Gilbert jumped up. "Party crash time!"

"TOMATO!" Antonio's head resurfaced from the water.

"Hey!" Francis pointed at Gilbert. "How come he didn't have to wear pants?"

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Matthew stood in the middle of a crowd of people running back and forth from stores, jobs, and guy with the card game down the road that had just taken a guys watch. None of the people even gave him a glance as he stood there waiting for Alfred to show up. He'd made the best of Lovino's 'directions' and made it to what he assumed was the mungotron he was talking about. The screen was huge and had a McDonald's commercial flashing how delicious their breakfast menu was. Not like it really helped them when breakfast was at least another six hours away.

"Hey, Mattie!" Sure enough, the only person to actually acknowledge his existence was his brother, Alfred. Matthew turned over his shoulder from the McCafe ad to...the walking McCafe ad. Alfred wore his bomber jacket to block the spring night wind and had his 'I'm lovin' it' t-shirt on underneath. Matthew had noticed it at the airport earlier and figured it was probably to appeal to the other nations since it had the logo plastered in about 50 different languages all over it and he must have figured it would make a good impression. In his hand he held a large cup of coffee.

"Hey, Al," Matthew called. "You need to work on who you give the directions too, eh. Lovino didn't even know I was in the room."

"Really? I just told a bunch of people and hoped you would get the message," he said, "My boss said to keep my phone open so I didn't want to call you. You may all be starting vacation already but I'm not off till tomorrow."

"I guess that just comes with running such a big and busy nation," the slightly younger nation gestured around the moving city, even at ten o'clock at night. "If this is just one city I'd hate to see the others. Just managing this city looks like it could keep you awake for months on end."

"Eh, you get used to it, I guess," America shrugged. "Any way that's what I wanted to talk to you about. We've all got our...'people' who we don't exactly...make public. Y'know...the one who do the...'dirty work', per say..."

Matthew looked at his brother. If he was talking about _spies_, then this wasn't the sort of thing he should be talking about on a public street. Let alone to another nation. "Al-"

"It's about that situation I called you about a few months ago," Alfred persisted. "Remember the jail break that happened near the border in North Dakota that had the murder and assassin-charges that we haven't found?"

Matthew didn't say anything but he nodded. Six or seven criminals had escaped with the help of some people on the outside - they had to have had help or they never would have come across enough explosives to blow though eight high security prison walls of concrete. They had searched relentlessly for weeks but not even a trace was found. It sent most of the northern half of the state and a good chunk of Saskatchewan into a bit of a flurry of panic. It had taken two weeks of searches, a good million dollars in both currencies, and multiple lies to the press to calm the people down again.

"Well...we found them," Alfred stated grimly. "But not in the way we had hoped."

"What do you mean?" Matthew hadn't seen his brother this concerned over something since his last election.

"I can't go into detail now, I've got a meeting with and agent that's just gotten back in about an hour," Alfred glanced at his watch and took another swig of coffee. "But I need you to do me a favor..."

* * *

**DONE. **

***sigh* I feel so accomplished. Sure, this chapters a bit shorter than I'd hoped, but PLOT PRODUCTION! I mean, who doesn't love some good story line continuation. Sure, every one loves random funnies too, but I live for the _action_. Action is good. It adds fun to life. And more is coming soon. And as an appolagy for the shortness of this chapter, I promise I'll make the next one EXTRA long. Because I love all you people who are crazy enough to like the same stuff I do.  
**

**In retrospect, I probably could have added more, but I wanted to get this up before I have a good few days of insanity. I've got make up work at school that needs to get done. And sadly school comes before fanfiction...most of the time.**

**Reviews are loved, but just seeing that someone has read this far is lovely too. :)  
**


	5. Chapter 5

Natalya was the last one to arrive in the lot.

The cars Alfred had talked about the day before had come at about eight, but the nations were free to sleep till whenever they wanted before taking a car and leaving for their unknown destination. That destination? A huge empty parking lot in the middle of nowhere. But for nowhere, it had a very nice view of the morning sun.

Ivan watched Natalya step out of the car nervously. He knew exactly why she was the last one to arrive. She had been waiting for him.

One of the first things Alfred had said to him when he got off the plane was an apology that he would be in the same hotel as his younger sister (since if she wasn't, the young nation would be watching his back for the rest of his life). This would have by no circumstances been OK if he hadn't rearranged the entire hotel room chart just to one thing: put her on the top floor (also known as the 45th floor) and put Ivan on the third. That way Ivan could run for it before she could even pass the 30th floor. For this alone Alfred would live another day. This was also how he had managed to get out the hotel door and leave in the car at exactly eight o'clock before Natalya had even left her hotel room to go wait outside his door for him to wake up. So for five hours Ivan sat and watched the sun rise over the Atlantic, and Natalya knocked and clawed on his door till it was finally non-existent.

Ivan now wished he was a foot shorter. That way he could hide behind Eduard and he wouldn't have to suffer the ever present gaze of his stalker. Lucky for him, however, there was a large crowd between him and his reoccurring nightmare.

A few steps away, Kiku and Yao were in the middle of another heated discussion about copy rights when Arthur waltzed over, repeating for about the millionth time today, "Where is the moron anyway? He drags us all here in the early morning - not like it's morning anymore, its two p.m. - and then _doesn't show u_-"

_"Good afternoon, fellow nations!"_ About a hundred bodies shifted to find the source of the well-known voice. _"Welcome to the start of the best - and possibly only - vacation you will ever have!" _Ivan found the voice almost immediately, as he had miraculously appeared about two feet behind him and the megaphone was about two more words from deafening him. His infamous death smile crept onto his face as he imagined squeezing the life out of the insanely annoying young man and mopping up the juices with his victim's new Hawaiian t-shirt.

"Yeah, yeah, now tell us what we're doing in an empty parking lot three times the size of Big Ben!" The Englishman was more or less unfazed, but held his fingers in his ears. "Most of us have been standing here for hours and Peter has had to go to the bathroom for half an hour and won't _shut up _about it."

_"Don't worry, my much-less-amazing friend!"_ Alfred shouted, still into the megaphone. _"We shall soon be on our way to a marvelous world of - **SKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE**"_

Ivan smashed the megaphone's end off and promptly chucked it in the general direction Francis, landing a hit that would make a professional spear thrower jealous.

"You were saying?" He asked, still smiling.

A large visible shudder passed through Alfred before finally turning back to the crowd and shouting, "Anyway, the buses should be here in three...two...one..." He counted down the seconds while looking at his watch and when he hit zero he pointed off to his right where...an absolutely ginormus line of tour buses was filing into the lot.

There had to have been at least thirty busses, all painted with what appeared to be every nation flag known to man kind. They filed into rows and pulled to a stop in front of the large crowd of awaiting nations.

"There are six beds on each bus," Alfred started. "These will be your mobile homes for the next month or so, so chose your bus-mates wisely. I give you fifteen minutes. _Go_."

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The following fifteen minutes were honestly so chaotic and insane that they weren't describable in words. Kiku's only had three words for the incident: he got lucky.

Kiku had arrived in America and went straight to his hotel to sleep off any jet lag. He had a very nice rest followed by four hours in the lot trying to keep Yong Soo away from him and explain - _again _- to Yao why we don't simply take other peoples' hard invented products, duplicate them, and sell them at half price. Kiku had figured these were signs of a bad day ahead, but he figured at this point he should reconsider.

On his bus - which we shall call Bus I - was himself, Ludwig, Feliciano, Lovino, Gilbert, Antonio, and Matthew. Yes, there were seven of them, but Feliciano insisted he could share a bed with Ludwig or Lovino - "No way in hell are you sharing with Spain," Lovino had insisted multiple times - and Matthew wasn't discovered until the buses had already departed the lot. Kiku figured that he could have been off much worse. From the sounds coming from Bus II, a very _bad _duo of Europeans had ended up on the same bus, so he considered himself lucky that he ended up with nations that were fairly friendly to one another - if you could count Lovino's and Antonio's interactions 'friendly'.

The beds were all located on a second story of the bus, so the bottom was dedicated to sofas, food, entertainment, and enough space for Lovino to chuck tomatoes at Ludwig without - miraculously - hitting anyone else.

Now Gilbert was getting Matthew to make him some pancakes in the kitchen space, Feliciano pestered Ludwig with questions about pretty much everything, Lovino continued to chuck tomatoes - at Antonio this time - and Kiku found himself tapping away at the next level on his handheld game.

Seven minutes had passed.

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Alfred found Bus II very exiting.

Already, Francis and Arthur were chucking things at each other while Alfred sat back and watched, munching on his ever-present hamburger. The things they threw included vases, spoons, forks, sporks, pillows, the keys to the ignition, Peter, and Angelique. Sealand seemed to be enjoying his miniature flights across the not-currently-in-motion-because-the-keys-just-flew-out-the-window bus, while Seychelles seemed to be very concerned about her pet fish, which she currently carried in a goldfish bowl.

_I wonder if Matt brought his bear?_ Alfred wondered. He hadn't seen it yesterday, which struck him as odd, but his brother may have left him in the hotel to hide from all the crazy New Yorkers.

The driver clambered back onto the bus and started it up. As the bus began moving, Arthur lost his balance and stopped saying whatever he was about to say - Alfred wasn't really paying attention - to fall over onto the floor.

"Ah-ha!" Francis took the chance to lift up one of the cushions off the couch and prepare to slam it down onto the felled nations skull when the bus rounded a sharp turn and he ended up sliding into a small table, knocking Alfreds chocolate milkshake all over his face.

Alfred proceeded to laugh at both of them. Maybe there _would _be some fun in this job.

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Raivis felt his situation could have been better.

"M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-mister Russia...I think my hair would look much nicer if you w-would take your h-hand off my h-head," he stuttered.

"Now why would you say that?" Ivan's smile of 'my-life-sucks-right-now-why-doesn't-yours?' plastered on his face. Every few moments he would glance behind him at Natalya, who _was _being occupied by Eduard before he broke out into another, _"Latviaaaa!"_

This, in turn, got Katyusha's attention and she 'boinged' over saying, "младший брат, little Raivis is so cute. Maybe we could have a picnic in one of those pretty fields Mr. Alfred has in Kansas, now that we don't have to be restricted by our bosses for a while, you know? Maybe Feliciano can make you a spring outfit that will go well with your scarf?"

Raivis was blessed by Ivan getting distracted long enough to run and hide behind the couch.

"Don't be distracted, брат!" Natalya cut in. "Toris shouldn't have abandoned you, after everything you've done for him, for a man like Feliks."

Raivis shuddered behind the couch. Alfred had told them all that on this vacation, they were to treat each other like people, not like nations they have fought or been allied with or been in debt to at some point or another. Toris may have that excuse to get away working for him now, but after this was over, there would be 'Mother' Russia to pay.

Eduard came behind the couch to sit net to Latvia as Natalya could be heard in the background saying, "Maybe it will make you happier if we got _married _now, брат..."

"This is going to be a looong vacation," Eduard mumbled.

"I wish I had a friend like Toris does..."

"Good luck with that, Raivis."

"Is..." Raivis and Eduard turned to the man they just noticed to be next to them. Apparently Yao had been behind the couch the whole time. "Is he always this terrifying...aru?"

"Pretty much," Eduard responded.

"Jao?" The Russian accent came from the other side of the couch. "Where did you sneak off too?"

"Aiyaa!" The Chinese man covered his head. "How did I get into this mess!" Just then, Yao's cell phone went off in his pocket. Yao opened it with slightly shaking hands and read his message...and then proceeded to facepalm while Raivis read over his shoulder:

I bet a look pretty awesome right now don't I? -Yong Soo

"There you all are!"

_"Gyaa!"_

**_"LATVIAAA!"_**

* * *

**I enjoyed this chapter. This chapter made me happy inside. **

**So I decided that I would like the public's opinion on how long I should make the chapters. I can make them long (like, this chapter or longer) with fewer updates, or shorter chapters just about every day. I am still in high school so that will get in the way sometimes but life is unpredictable. If you could tell me in the review section that would be awesome.**

**Thanks muchos for reading! Your reviews are to me as pasta is to Feli!  
**


	6. Chapter 6

Fecliciano watched Lovino play with his new tomato paddle-ball Ludwig have given him for their birthday yesterday.

Lovino had eventually become bored with throwing tomatoes and swearing his head off at every one - including the bus driver - and started sifting though his many tomato-related presents till he came across the paddle-ball with a little plastic tomato at the end of the string. At first he was reluctant to use it since it was from..._him_...but since he had no intention of putting on the tomato boxers from Antonio, misplaced the ipod nano Alfred gave him, and he and Feliciano had long since become bored with making each other pasta every year and decided to rather make bets on who would get what (Feliciano won this year with the boxers), he had nothing better to do than repeatedly hit a plastic tomato with the piece of wood it was attached to by a piece of string. Well, he _could _keep going though his present pile, but that would take..._effort_.

So he had spent the past half an hour amusing Feliciano with the paddle ball.

"Ve~! You're so good at this, _fratello_!" Feliciano practically sang.

"Of course I am," Lovino responded matter-of-factually. "Accuracy is important when the mafia shows up at a bar and you have nothing but the game of darts you were playing. And for chucking things at potato bas-"

"Why do Southern Italians have to be so violent?" Ludwig mused from where he sat watching a DVD of Cinderella. "They call this Cinderella? They didn't even _suggest _chopping off bits of their feet."

"It's a childrens' movie, West," Gilbert said groggily from one of the couches where he had fallen asleep earlier. "Where are we now, anyway?"

"Ve~, I don't know," Feliciano wanted to know now, too. "Could we ask the driver?"

"No, I'm pretty sure that wall he put between us and the driver's seat is sound proof," Ludwig said. "Kiku, doesn't your laptop have GPS?"

They all turned to where Kiku was sitting in a chair playing his 3DS with his headphones in - as to 'not bother others' - and shouting, "No! Not Rosario Impale again! No don't- Royal Jelly! **_NO NOT AGAIN_**_**!**_"

"KIKU!" Ludwig attempted to shout over the noise of the small nation's headphones.

"Shut up!" Lovino and Gilbert shouted, followed by overlapping, "You're going to wait up Spain, again!" and "Hangovers are not helped with loud noises!"

"Here, Gilbert," Matthew seemingly appeared out of no where, "have a banana." This banana, of course, was covered in maple syrup.

"A banana?" Gilbert asked.

"They're supposed to help hangovers."

"_Hand it over._" Gilbert at the banana, syrup and all.

"What did you three do last night, anyway?" Ludwig asked, getting irritated at his brother's newest act of 'awesomeness' he liked to call 'stupidity'.

"Nothing _illegal_," the hung-over Prussian assured. "Besides, the groom said we were _exciting_."

"Well, just go upstairs with Antonio," Ludwig ordered and turned to Kiku as Gilbert started to make his way up the stairs, mumbling all the while. "Kiku, can we use your laptop?"

But Kiku wasn't listening. "Ha! Take that you - _NOT AGAIN_!"

"It says we're in Pennsylvania," Feliciano spoke up from his chair. He had apparently had the laptop the whole time. "Some place called King of Prussia."

"_Was_?" Gilbert shot back down the staircase. "King of _where_?"

"Prussia," Feliciano responded. "Oh! Ludwig, look! I hit level 15,700 on Mafia Wars!"

"Try as much as you want, _fratellino_," Lovino responded to the not-directed-at-him comment. "You'll never catch up to me on that game."

"Dude, let me see that thing!" Gilbert came around behind Feliciano to get to the key pad. He closed the younger nation's facebook page to bring the GPS window back up. "Yes!" he laughed. "Al sure knows how to name his towns! See, West? These guys know how to pay homage to the awesomest nation ever."

"And said nation apparently doesn't know how to page homage to the man who's letting him live in his basement," Ludwig retorted.

"Look!" Prussia was completely ignoring his brother. "They have a mall!"

"Shopping~!" Feliciano cheered.

"Do we have time to go shopping?" Ludwig asked.

"Well according to the schedule," Lovino said pulling a piece of paper off the wall. "We're meeting up in South Carolina to go swimming tomorrow. So long as we give the driver one of those energy drinks and make him drive all night we should make it."

"Wait, there's a schedule?" Ludwig tore the schedule from Lovino's grip - "Hey!" - and scanned it over. "We're going to the Grand Canyon?"

"And Vegas," Lovino added. "So we get to see the worlds largest pot hole and then go lose all our money and get wasted."

"Sounds fun," Gilbert said as he walked toward the wall that separated them from the driver. "Anyway, we're going to make an unexpected break," he said and kicked the wall down.

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"My head hurts..." Antonio mumbled six hours later after buying half of - and then getting kicked out of - Gilbert's new favorite mall. Unluckily for Antonio, there was a vegitable-based-product stand having a closing sale. So he saved 50%, but lost a good couple hundred bucks on tomato t-shirts, pillows, and an eye-patch. Well, Antonio had bought the eye-patch for himself, but those were _a lot_ of pillows...that Lovino was now lining his bed with.

The second floor of the bus had three beds on either side and an isle in the middle. Each bed also had privacy curtains printed with their nation's flag on them. Don't ask how Alfred seemed to know who was going to on which bus. They were still trying to figure that out.

"Sure, whatever, take an Advil or something," Lovino said passivly. "Now I'm tired and I'm going to bed. Go down stairs, I've got to change and you creep me out."

"Fine~," Antonio stumbled over to the stairs, wondering if Matthew could show him where the bananas were.

On the way down he bumped into Feliciano. "He's getting changed," Antonio told him."

"Ve~, OK," Feliciano said but went up the stairs anyway.

When he reached the second floor, Feliciano commented, "Ve~. Lovi, I think you got fatter."

"What are you- oh. _Fratello_, don't scare me like that. I thought you were Spain. But then, if you were him, he would have come in shouting about my boxers, not the weight I...hey!"

"Ve~, _fratello_, you're so slow!" Feliciano laughed.

"Oh, like you're any-" Lovino never got to finish his insult before he broke out coughing.

"_Fratello_!" Feliciano's ever-present smile was broken by a worried expression as he ran over to his older twin. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fi-" More coughing.

"Are you feeling sick? Do you feel hot? Maybe I should get Antoni-"

"No!" Lovino grabbed his brother's wrist, stopping him. "I'm fine now, see? It's just a cough." Feliciano still looked worried but he showed no sign of going to get help. "Now I'm going to bed. If you wanna share a bed with me then get changed," Lovino continued pulling his shirt on the rest of the way. Sure, they normally slept naked, but when sharing a room with other nations they did have _a bit _of a conservative side_._

"Fine~." Feliciano started to change too, but he still didn't look to happy about it. "Hey, at the beach tomorrow, do you think I can get Mr. Roderich to play Marco Polo with us?"

"Sure, right when Ludwig stops eating that potato crap."

"Lovi~," a call came from downstairs. "Are you done yet? They're trying to get me to eat the food Arthur gave you!"

"Come on, wimp! I downed the crap!" A very Prussian rang through the bus. "You dared me now I dare you! _Eat it_!"

"No! Gilbert don't!" Three voices shouted at the same time then-

_Crash!_

"Gilbert!"

"_Bruder_!'

"Agh! The bus driver!"

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England watched out the window as their bus pulled up Alfred's driveway in Virginia. Alfred had assured that this wouldn't take long and they would still make it on time but Arthur wasn't thinking about that. Or the fact that Alfred had tied them up after he got bored of watching them fight and they kept getting in the way of his Transformers movie.

He was thinking how unfair it was that Alfred's house was six stories tall and still pulled off the 'small Virginia country home' look.

"Now if you two can get along for fifteen minutes," Alfred was saying, "then maybe I'll let you use the indoor pool and the bowling alley. No you may not get a punch in after I untie you."

"Fine, just untie us!" Arthur shouted at him.

Alfred got Peter to help untie them and they got off the bus and walked up to the house.

"I'm going around back to get some stuff out of the storage shed," Alfred said. "Feel free to look around, but don't wreck anything," and he disappeared around a hedge.

"I'm ganna go find this bowing alley!" Peter said and Sealand ran off to explore the house with Seychelles. "Wow, this place is _huge_!"

"He must have some beautiful maids somewhere," the Frenchman purred to himself. "American women simply _adore _foreign accents, you know. Even _you _could pick up a girl here."

"Oh, shut up, you bloody pervert," Arthur told Francis and the later walked toward the front door. But Arthur wasn't interested in the house.

Making sure the bus driver or any one else was watching, he slipped behind the hedge and followed after his former colony.

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_One would think I would remember more of this place_, Arthur thought to himself. _But then again, when I used to come here he didn't have an eighteen hole golf course and three swimming pools complete with waterfalls._

Arthur had managed to follow Alfred for a couple hundred yards before finally getting lost. He could have sworn he saw the man turn left at the large fence but when he followed the path he couldn't find him again. He had tried to back track twice but only ended up getting lost._ How big can this place possibly be? _That was when he passed circus tent._  
_

The man must have spent thousands of dollars on his giant outdoor play pen. The intricate layout of the property was crisscrossed with gardens, pools, ponds, orchards, horse stables, a petting zoo, and what appeared to be an African safari. All tucked in between two mountains in the Appalachians. Alfred needed to get out more.

He walked though some rose bushes in one of the gardens and turned at a large oak tree to find himself back at the fence where he had lost Alfred. _What...? Oh, this place is so bloody _big._ Does he really need all this space?_

Then he heard something off to his right and saw the man he was looking for walk though a gate in the fence Arthur hadn't seen before. He was carrying a large cardboard box with both hands and shut the gate with his foot. Arthur quickly slid back behind the oak, wondering what could be in the box. _Maybe if I could get closer..._

Being as quiet as physically possible, he slid from behind the tree and ducked behind a rose bush closer to his target. Alfred had set the box down and opened it, as if checking to make sure he had everything. He seemed to be mumbling a list of things he found to himself but Arthur wasn't close enough to hear.

After a minute or so - Arthur's legs were getting tired from crouching for so long - when Alfred stood up, and went back through the gate, leaving the box. _Maybe he forgot something. Now's my chance._

Arthur had never been convinced that his former colony would invite every nation existence for a road trip vacation across his land just for the heck of it. He knew he must have a reason...but he had no idea what that reason could be. Maybe if he got a look at what was in the box...

Climbing out of his hiding spot, Arthur tip toed over to the box and opened the lid to find...

"What the hell..."

* * *

**Cliffhanger! *legasp!***

**Well, I apologize, but chapter 7 won't be up till at least next week. Why? Because I'm going on a trip to Chicago that will deny me internet access. That's why. But it's OK! Because I will by scratching out plot line on notebook paper every second I get! Why(again)? Because I love you people. And your reviews. I love them too. They make me happy.**

**But expect some massive plot happenings in the next few chapters (which I will post when I get back). Plot is good. It keeps things moving. But random crap is also good. I'd like to know what the people like more, though: plot or random stuff. I personally like a good balance of the two, but that's just me. The author. Who is probably going to get less say than her Beta reader... oh well. What can you do? Well, a lot, but I'm just babbling now. Enjoy your freaking out about cliff hangers 3  
**


	7. Chapter 7

Ludwig watched Gilbert jump out of the but in his swim shorts and proceed to irritate Elizabeta, Roderich, and Feliks in two comments about Elizabeta's bathing suit within a span of about twelve seconds. He silently wondered to himself how his brother had so much energy. What was he...one, two thousand years old now? Not like age mattered a lot for them. Yao had to be around four thousand and he could still beat the crud out of you with a wok.

Last night Gilbert had slept on the couch on the bottom floor of their crazy double-decker tour bus after discovering that Lovino doesn't particularly enjoy being snuggled in his awake at four in the morning and that Matthew is surprisingly hard to wake up. So Lovino had kicked Gilbert out of his bed in order to clear room for Feliciano to not have to sleep with someone else. This wouldn't have bothered Ludwig if he hadn't come downstairs at around 5:30 - when he normally wakes up - to find his brother in the midst of a coughing fit with a half-empty bottle of NyQuil. Ludwig had tried to figure out what was wrong but all he could get between coughs was that the sort-of nation had been up most of the night coughing and feeling like...well...crap, to put it simply. The coughing had died down by the time everyone else started to get up - probably the half a bottle of NyQuil, but Ludwig was still trying to keep an eye on him.

Now he was being chased around a South Carolina cove by the 'demon frying pan' while dodging the other hundred plus nations that managed to fit on the beach without feeling too crowded. Lucky for them it was a surprisingly warm spring morning, even for this more southern-ended state.

"Ve~, Ludwig," Feliciano was bobbing up and down in his Italian flag swim shorts next to Ludwig, somehow keeping a death grip on his brother's wrist as to keeping his brother from running away from the older's beach day plans. Lovino also had Italian-clad shorts. Actually, most of them had their flags on their bathing suits - save for a few who seemed to find food, birds, and roses more important to them._ Just being 'people' may be harder than Alfred thought..._ Ludwig thought to himself. "Let's play Marco Polo!"

"Uh, Feliciano?" Ludwig was looking curiously at Lovino. "Why does your brother have duct tape over his mouth?"

"Wha~?" Feliciano turned to his brother for a quick moment before turning back and responding. "Oh~, he did that to himself! I made him give up cursing for lent so he's carrying around a roll of duct tape just in case! Oh! He's even been making up stuff to say instead of the cuss words! I think he likes the duct tape better though..."

"Wow...how did you pull that off?" Ludwig question, remembering how catholic the two were even through their...everything. That, and Ludwig was a little weary of Feliciano's use of the word 'made'...

"Well he wanted to give up potato-eater's and pedophiles, but I told him he should give up something harder! So I got him to give up swearing~! Isn't that neat~!"

"I'd say it's more of a miracle..." Ludwig stared in amazement. "What did you give up?"

Feliciano's face froze, still in his smile, but it seemed like the sun was hitting his face in a way that was almost... Lovino seemed to be smiling almost maniacally under his duct tape.

Lovino must have gotten pay back...hard.

"A-anyway," The German now decided this was _not_ the topic to talk about. "Marco Polo...with three people?" Ludwig raised an eyebrow. Feliciano pulled off another random jump back to his airily happy face. Ludwig sighed of relief inside.

"Four people!" Antonio seemed to materialize out of nowhere. Lovino seemed to be struggling harder.

"Five!" Francis seemed materialized from behind Antonio.

"Can we get Mr. Roderich to play too~?" Feliciano asked.

"Good luck with that," Gilbert muttered as he walked over to join them while rubbing the back of his head. "He too busy mumbling mostly-incoherent comments on how indecent Liz's bathing suit is. It's not even a two piece!"

"Ooh,-ooa-ooe-ooear-ooai-hou-ooat'f-goin'-om?" Alfred walked over from who-knows-or-seriously-cares-where with Arthur with a Subway sandwich sticking half out of his mouth. "Wha're we duin?"

"This is why you don't just jump into another person's conversation, bloody moron," Arthur scolded. "and stop trying to talk with your mouth full! No one can understand a word you're saying!"

Alfred swallowed. "Yes, _Mom_," he countered, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, what's happenin'?"

Arthur mumbled something about befouling the Queen's language while Ludwig answered with, "Feliciano wants to play Marco Polo. But honestly I don't know how we could do that since there are so many people. You'd keep running into other people."

"Hmm..." Alfred took another bite of his sandwich and surveyed the simi-crowed-but-not-incredibly-crowed-as-to-make-you-want-to-leave beach. "Well if you head that way," he pointed northward up the beach, "And swim around those big rocks you can get to another smaller cove-ish kind of place. Probably enough space there."

"Ve~, You know this place so well, Alfred," Feliciano commented. "Do you come here a lot?"

"Well I try to visit all my states at least once a decade," Alfred took another bite but swallowed this time before talking again. "Not so easy when your boss always wants you either in D.C. or out-of-nation on business with you guys though. Y'know, when was the last time I was here?" Alfred turned a a man relaxing on a beach chair about five feet away that they somehow hadn't noticed before. "What was it, '98?"

Ludwig, Arthur, and several others, had looks on their faces as if they were trying to figure out who this man was. Maybe one of the bus drivers...?

"'89," he responded. "The year you tried to get me to skydive into the ocean and somehow taught Kumamaru how to scuba dive with your whale friend...in the wrong part of the ocean."

"Oh, yeah," Alfred smiled at the memory, "Thanks, Matt."

Oh, it was just Canada.

"Anyway, I've got to go debrief Bus I's new driver. Did you really manage to chuck one of those crap-scones through a wall and hit the old guy in the head?" Alfred asked Gilbert.

"Yeah, who knew crappy food wasn't just bad for digestion," Gilbert shrugged.

"Well, have fun, my semi-psychotic guests." Alfred swallowed the rest of his sandwich and waked off toward Bus I.

"All right!" Antonio took Lovino's un-Feliciano-occupied arm and started waving it in the air. "Secret Cove, ahoy! ¡ Vamos a jugar, mi amigos!" Antonio then proceeded to drag - practically through the air - Lovino and Feliciano toward the large rock formation that enclosed the beach, Francis and Gilbert quickly following suit.

Arthur sighed. "Perhaps we were the only ones blessed with _sanity_ in this chaotic group," he commented to Ludwig. Then he seemed to catch Alfred gossiping about him with the bus driver because he turned and started shouting, "They are _not_ imaginary, twat! You're just blind!" and he ran off to go yell at him more.

"No..." Ludwig mumbled to himself, "It's just me..." and he walked after Feliciano's kidnappers.

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"Ve~, Marco!"

"Polo!"

"Ve~, Marco!"

"Polo."

"When do you think he'll realize we're not even in the water?" Gilbert asked Ludwig on the towel next to him.

"If it's anything like last time..." Ludwig responded, "He won't."

The cove Alfred had pointed them to was just a small patch of beach surrounded by large rocks on both sides and a cliff in the back. Gilbert and Ludwig were 'playing' Marco Polo with Feliciano, Antonio was trying to get Lovino - against his many complaints - to build a sand castle with him, and Francis was taking turns going around to everyone and being a pedo. Matthew had apparently come with them - according to Gilbert, at least - but Ludwig currently had no idea where the man was now.

"Come on, Lovi, please~?" Now Antonio was trying to pull Lovino into the water - a horribly failing attempt - but had only managed to get him ankle-deep. Apparently the Italian did _not_ feel like swimming today. The only effort Lovino was putting into anything was pulling away and screaming his new made up swears so loud his grandfather could hear him. Were any of the words clear enough to understand? Of course not.

"What do you not understand about '_no_'?" Lovino was yelling at the Spaniard. "What do you have against taking a nap, you over-eccentric freak? Two seconds ago you wanted to make a sand castle! How do you go from sand castle to 'Let's see who can swim out farther, faster!' in a span of two seconds?"

"My, my, mon cher," Francis appeared from under the water and almost immediately began groping Antonio. "You're not being a kind parental figure. Young children need their nap times."

Time to test just how well Lovino could make replacements for his constant swears. "Wha- Who are you calling 'young child', you piece of-"

"Marco!" Feliciano drowned out Lovino's newest variation of his 'nickname's for the Frenchman.

Everyone responded with "Polo!" without looking up and immediately went back to their other conversations.

"Eh~...a bad parent?" Antonio continued the conversation without even the slightest sign of recognizing that Francis was sexually assaulting him.

"P-parent?" Lovino seemed to highly dislike the notion that Antonio was his 'father'. "Like hell he's my '_parent_'!"

"Yeah," Antonio agreed. "I'm his big brother!"

"Wha-" Lovino didn't seem to like this either. "He's not a parent, or brother, or guardian...he's barely an acquaintance!"

"Oh hon," Francis chuckled, " Elizaveta's folders' would beg to differ."

Ludwig stopped watching the argument for a moment and looked over to check on his brother. Unlucky for him, Gilbert caught him before he could turn away again and glared at him.

"I'm fine, OK?" Gilbert retorted. "You don't have to go all 'worried-little-brother' on me. It's kinda creepy. Anyway, let's think of all the awesome things that have happened that we can say freely without some government official marking every word we breath," Gilbert made a big motion with his hands and lay down with a plop on his chick-print towel. "Starting from what you would remember, you've got meeting Feli, me, getting Independence, me, the Great War ending, me, Feli being unable to hold a grudge, me, the guy Roderich gave us - Mr. "He's-a-cruddy-artist-by-my-standards-but-his-crap-past-could-make-him-a-great-leader-or-something, why don't you take him?" - dies, me, we got to destroy that irritating-as-hell-wall, me, Feli's wearing pants for once..._me_."

"If you're feeling so 'fine'," Ludwig glared right back at his brother. "Then why aren't you out there picking on Feliciano and his brother like you normally would? Since when have you passed up opportunities to screw with other people's free time?"

It seemed like Ludwig had finally hit something when - Lovino's curses started echoing through the cove with a voice that could bring even an old man without his hearing aid to cover his ears.

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Heck to grandpa, Lovino was totally prepared to have his 'swears' reach even Germania at this point.

_How could they possibly get 'big brother' out of 'that-creepy-ex-boss-pedo-guy-who-doesn't-seem-to-leave-me-alone'? Well...if you looked at Francis' relationship with Matthew...but that's not the point!_

It wasn't that he had some freakish gay crush on Antonio that he spent most of his free time at the Spaniard's house, OK? It was just that his brother had a habit of inviting over potato freaks and he would rather completely zone out Antonio while eating a churro or something than trying to keep that freakish sorta-ex-nation-whatever-the-heck-he-was and his 'little' brother away from his fratello while trying to down that potato crap._  
_

He was vaguely aware of himself repeatedly punching Francis multiple times. Honestly, he was more focused on his word choice than what he was actually doing. He barely heard over his own yelling Antonio trying to say, "Lovi~, you OK? You're face is all tomato colored again."

Lovino was only dimly aware of this catching Feliciano's attention - not that it _normally_ meant much, being Feliciano, a worm could catch his undivided attention - as he turned to start yelling at what would soon be the worlds unluckiest Spaniard -

But then the world went black.

* * *

**HOLYCRAPIHAVEN'TPOSTEDINFOREVERI'MSOSORRYDON'TTHROWTOMATOESATMEGHAAAAA-!**

***ahem* Sorry about that too.**

**As I have no excuses, I will have to default with _high school kinda sucks. (fiveweekstwodays-fiveweekstwodays-fiveweekstwodays)_**

**So anyway, about Gil's rant.**

**Great War=WWI for those who don't know that already**

**Feli being unable to hold a grudge=Ludwig is lucky Feliciano didn't say enemy-esque after WWI when Italy kinda beat the crap out of Austria-Hungary(see Vittorio Veneto). Oh, and WWII...or so I'm told.  
**

**'The guy Roderich gave us'=Hitler. He wanted to be an artist but stupid art college wouldn't accept him just because he couldn't draw people.**

**The wall=Berlin Wall**

**Feli's wearing pants=well...Feli's wearing pants! Someone get a camera!**

**Oh! And I love my Beta Reader/Editor person c: She makes my spelling mistakes less noticeable :D  
**


	8. Chapter 8

_Click_.

Roderich looked up from his ice cream cone. "Elizabeta," he asked into a camera lens, "what are you doing?"

"Taking a picture so Kiku can put it on Photoshop later a-" Elizabeta dragged out the vowel for a moment, "-nd admire how well you picked that shirt to go with your swim shorts."

Roderich lifted an eyebrow at his ex as she quickly picked up a napkin off the corner of the ice cream truck and wipped it under her nose then tossed it in a trash can. "This wouldn't have to with those..._files_, would it?"

"What?" Elizabeta put a look of innocent confusion on her face. Roderich thought she would try to deny knowing what he was talking about til she said, "Why would I put that in my yaoi files? It's not like that pain Gilbert's around."

Roderich mentally face palmed. Ever since Honda had introduced her into this whole 'yaoi' thing, the two had become very good friends. One of her favorite parts about her new best bud was his Photoshop skills. Elizabeta had created her new 'yaoi files' which held countless photos and snipits of email and text conversations that she somehow got her hands on for every pairing of the nations possible. She even had threesomes. Roderich had never seen them himself - nor did he want to - but he was certain that she had somehow gotten them into the country and passed all of Alfred's crazy anti-gay people. Not that the yay-for-gay people were any less crazy. They're Americans. They're all crazy.

"So then this is for...?" Roderich cautiously went on with the conversation.

"Well even though Alfred doesn't seem to truly appreciate my folder collection, he still wanted to see the pictures I took, so I figured I'd make a scrapbook!" Elizabeta pulled a large scrap book out of her bag. "America's got tons of stores and places where I can get my photos printed and everything so I'm going to make it as I go. Won't this be great?" Elizebeta had a perfectly innocent smile on her face.

_Maybe she does have the ability to hold off her personal hobbies for once_...Roderich was thinking until shouts could be heard from further up the beach.

"Don't worry, Lovino! I'll save you!"

"Put me down you stupid idiot! I'm going to freaking kill you if you don't put me down in the next ten seconds! ... You know what? screw ten seconds! PUT ME DOWN!"

And then Antonio flew by, heading in the direction of the buses, with a certain tsundere Italian thrown over his shoulder who was trying to make up replacements for his swears as he tried to keep his head from bouncing repeatedly off of the Spaniard's lower back by repeatedly pounding him with his fists as hard as he could. As they went Roderich didn't even have to look to know that the rapid clicking was his ex being unable to put off her personal hobbies...as usual.

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Antonio had splayed himself out across one of the couches on the bottom floor of Bus I, his face buried in a pillow.

Yes, he had noticed Lovino going to bed early was a bit abnormal. Yes, he had noticed Lovino's face had been a bit red since he had woken up that morning. Yes, he had noticed Lovino trying to covertly dig through the bus's supply of cold medicine. Yes, it had taken him two minutes to figure out that Lovino had passed out in mid sentence and not spontaneously decided to fall asleep in the water. The next two minutes were spent waking up Lovino, carrying Lovino - against the Italian's will - to the bus, and distracting Francis by shouting, "Look! A hot blond!" No, Francis did not bother to ask about gender. They ran pretty fast.

"When did I get so stupid?" Antonio asked no one in particular.

"Oh, you finally noticed?" Arthur, who was sitting in the chair next to him sipping tea commented.

Antonio lifted his head and glared at him with the glare that was specially saved for the armada-wrecking 'gentleman'.

"OK, Tonio. Come here." Gilbert grabbed a hold of Antonio's hand and dragged him off the couch to the wall. "Tonio, meet wall. Wall, meet Toni's forehead."

"Thanks, Gil." The Spaniard proceeded to bang his head against the wall.

"Antonio, stop. That's not going to fix anything," Ludwig commanded from where he sat on the other couch. "And Gilbert, stop picking on people for two seconds and sit down! For all we know you've got the same thing Lovino does."

Gilbert made a pouty face, probably at the fact that everyone currently on the bus - Arthur, Ludwig, Antonio, and Gilbert on the bottom floor and Lovino, Feliciano, and Matthew on the top - now knew he was all sickly and, in his words, 'less awesome'. After Lovino passed out Ludwig went all Drill Sargent on on the Prussian and kept asking things like if he felt dizzy; if that was a rough sigh or a cough; maybe you should just rest in bed today; just how much NyQuil did you take last night? Gilbert was going to go insane. If Antonio didn't first. Lovino didn't want him upstairs as he was claiming that all this extra tomato-freak exposure must be hazardous to his health. The only reason Matthew was allowed upstairs was because he had some medical training and was willing to do it for 'free' - Arthur insisted that Matthew would get his pay one way or another.

"_**Son of a goat-herder and a whore!**_" The scream that came from upstairs seemed to shake the whole bus. Antonio and Gilbert fell over in surprise and Arthur spat tea everywhere.

"_Romano_!" His brothers accusing yell came right after.

"It's not a swear; it's an occupation! _Gyack_! **No**! **_Get off_**!"

A few moments and loud bangs later Matthew came falling down the stairs to land on his butt, shortly followed by the first aid kit bouncing off his head. "Ow…" he mumbled.

"…what just happened?" Arthur asked.

"Is Lovi OK?" Antonio stopped hitting his head and turned around, exposing the now tomato-sized red mark on his forehead that symbolized his newly lost brain cells. Matthew mumbled something about his own safety that no one could hear because they were having enough trouble just hearing what he said.

"Um…hug therapy?" Matthew answered Arthur. "Anyway," Matthew stood up, rubbing his hind end and picking up the kit. "From what I can tell from everything – bad cough, headache, dizziness – it seems like just a bad cold but I can't be sure. Something seems…off somehow."

"Should we get him to a doctor?" Ludwig asked.

"No…I'd rather not get into the American health care system in the middle of a road trip." The look on the Canadians face showed his obvious distaste for what he would call his brother's stupidity. "Alfred knows some good doctors in Florida we can check out when we stop for a few days in Miami. He should be fine until then."

"Is Lovino's economy dropping?" Arthur questioned while trying to wipe up all the tea he spat out.

"I'll go steal Kiku's laptop and che-ghack!" Ludwig grabbed a hold of Gilbert's collar before he could jump off the bus.

"Oh, no you don't," Ludwig said sternly. "You're not going anywhere until Matthew takes a look at you."

"'Take a look at me', eh?" Gilbert knowingly mocked the Canadian. "OK. Come 'ere, Matt. Why don't you _check me out_?" Gilbert started to lift his shirt but a fairly red-faced Matthew grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it down.

"Do you have a bad cough?" Matthew asked.

"Well not since this morning, but that NyQuil stuff can do wonders if you take enough of it. Gilbird's been asexually multiplying all day. Hey, I didn't know you wear two pairs of glasses." Gilbert poked Matthew's nose, as if trying to find this 'second pair' of glasses.

"Do you have a headache?" Matthew continued, only partially fazed.

"Well it kind of feels like that freakish demon koala is bouncing around inside my skull, does that count?"

"Do you feel dizzy?"

"What? Me, feeling such a weak and pathetic symptom without being drunk off beer? Please, the great Prussia could never-" Matthew gave Gilbert a hard jab with his finger in the forehead and the ex-nation fell over backwards and lay cross-eyed on the floor at Ludwig's feet. Gilbird started frantically circling his face. "Hey, West. When did you get more heads? You got them at that Wal-Mart down the street didn't you? Man, those places have _everything_! Do you think they can get rid of my extra noses? They showed up this morning; I think Liz attached them with her frying pan...Is it just me or is the planet spinning faster?"

They all sat and watched him babble on for a minute till he closed his eyes and seemingly passed out. "Yeah," Matthew confirmed. "It's the same thing Lovino's got, eh. Just...ten times the NyQuil. Maybe you should restrict him to pills or something? Pills with a Prussian-lock cap."

"Do you like waffles~?" The semi-conscious nation on the floor sang as Gilbird pecked at his silver hair.

* * *

**Yay! Eight chapters! XD**

**So chapter nine should be the last chapter of Part 1 and it'll probably be kinda long so I can cram in all I want to cram in. Expect greatness...and what the heck the plot is to be explained. Yay! Answers!**

**If the next one takes even longer than it took me to do this one to put up then...well I have a reason. Mostly that my grandparents showed up for my sister's graduation in a week and then there's my birthday and Band Banquet and blahblahblahyoudon'tcaraboutmylife.**

**I am now expected to give credit to by Beta Reader and best-est bud for her many ideas and editings. And history checks. Even when I Google it I'm not perfect. But that's why we have the true history dorks that study history books simply for the 'joy' of studying history. Anyway, her name be RosarioImpale (gee, I wonder where she got that). **

**Thirty Internets to anyone who gets my jokes on Canadian health care!  
**


	9. Chapter 9

**[insert seven minute rant about apologizing for lateness]**

* * *

Prussia was asleep on the couch after a long day of trying to fight his way off the bus and getting NyQuil out of his system.

When he woke up from passing out on the floor, he was already on the couch, it was 2 in the afternoon, and Ludwig had locked the door and windows...from the outside. Gilbert had tried everything. He ran himself into the door, he tried to pick the lock, he tried throwing a small fire extinguisher through the apparently bullet proof windows. Why were they bullet proof? He hadn't figured that out either.

The feeling-more-cramped-by-the-minute Prussian had even gone up to see if maybe his brother had forgotten the second floor windows...turns out he didn't _need_ to lock them. Lovino was still up there...and trying to sleep. This did not end well for poor Gilbert. After Ludwig got back with Feliciano, he spent a good hour begging for just _one_ Advil to make the throbbing on his head, chest, arms, and general everywhere stop. He only gave up after Ludwig's face went into it's 'there-is-no-way-on-this-good-earth-you-are-getting-your-way' face came on when Gilbert brought up that a few Gilbird's new 'children' had disappeared and how it was OK though because now he only had to think of two more names instead of five.

After a dinner of American fast-food - The others decided for some reason that they didn't want to bring back any left overs from the fancy restaurant they all went too - our poor Gilbert went to bed sore, coughing, and blowing his newly runny nose. Why the nose didn't start running till later? He wasn't sure. Not that he cared. All he really cared about was the fact he was sick in the first place. Not awesome.

He knew it was around one in the morning before he actually managed to fall asleep - while mumbling to himself about how awesome it was to be all alone on the bottom floor - but he wasn't entirely sure when it was he woke up.

He was having a dream about chicken-bear hybrids when someone's voice woke him up. It sounded quiet and like they were almost trying to whisper. They only reason it woke him up was because he was sleeping so light do to the...what ever bug it was that was in his system. It was hard enough that the bus was moving. Even if these buses did have strangely amazing shock absorbers.

He didn't open his eyes at first but he could hear him saying, "...course I checked, why else would I be calling? There's nothing wrong with either of their economies, governments, or people. They're all going about like they normally do so I can't figure out why...yes, I considered that too." He must have been talking on his cell phone because Gilbert couldn't hear the person he was talking to. He opened his eyes, but he was lying on his back and whoever was talking must have been behind him.

"Thoutta wha...?" Gilbert managed to mumble out and tried to roll over...causing him to land with a thud on the floor before he could realize the couch wasn't all that big and no one had noticed that the thing could fold out into a bed. Oops.

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Matthew jumped at the sound of Gilbert's voice and let out a small, "Maple!" He hadn't expected the albino to wake up - not with all the drugs the guy was supposed to be on. "G-Gilbert..."

"Ha...?" Gilbert lifted his head off the floor. "Matt? Oh, it's just you." He blinked at the cell phone in the Canadian's hand. "Who ya talkin' too?"

"Umm..." _Crap_, Matthew thought to himself. On the other end of the phone the person he was supposed to be talking to was starting to get curious.

"_Mattie? Hello~?" _

"Uh," Matthew moved his hand from in front of the receiver. "I'll call you back in a minute," he made out and hung up. He turned back to the albino staring at him from the floor who was now looking at him sideways with his cheek resting on the floor with no apparent motivation to get up - not that that made the red eyes that stood out a bit too much on the dark bus any less creepy.

"That was..." _Oh, I hope this works_. "Santa. He said he wanted me to make sure you were being good this year."

Gilbert squinted his eyes at him. "That can't be true." _Aw, sh-_ "Santa hasn't expected anything of me since I started taking vital regions."

Matthew breathed a - slightly more noticeable than planned - sigh of relief. He was still loopy! Giving him medical marijuana paid off after all!

"Of course it's true," Matthew argued back, a little more confident now. "Because this is a dream! And you're a decent person in this dream."

"Am I?" Gilbert looked slightly disgusted. "Well...who am I dating in this dream then?"

Matthew did not see that coming. "Uh...who do you want to be dating?"

"Well that depends on which way I swing in dream land," Gilbert continued.

_He won't remember this as reality, right?_ Matthew hid a smirk. "You're gay."

"Well then I must be dating a weirdo who thinks I could possibly be a decent person and have a legion of loyal male concubines including, but not limited to, Feliciano, Lovino, Francis, Roderich, Antonio, Elizaveta, Alfred and Ivan," Gilbert immediately responded with a look on his face that suggested his would be stroking his facial hair if he had any.

"Elizaveta isn't male."

"He is in dream land," Gilbert smirked. Matthew had a feeling this was a reference to something he was too young for.

"Uh...were does this put me, eh?"

Gilbert looked him up and down for a moment. "You look like someone who looks for the better in people..."

Matthew didn't like where this was going. "OK, how about we find out?" Gilbert looked puzzled. "This is the part where you close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and you open you eyes to be surrounded by you new concubines."

"Oh, OK." Gilbert closed his eyes, took a deep breath and was fast asleep again in the next few seconds.

Matthew sighed and whipped the sweat from his forehead. "_That_ was close." He pulled his phone back out and hit the redial button. When the other line picked up he started with, "Sorry about that, Al. Gilbert woke up and-"

"_Mattie I was thinking about it_," Alfred cut him off. "_I think we might have to tell them a little early..._"

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Arthur woke up when that wonderful law of gravity made his slide off his bed.

"Ow..." Arthur was rubbing the pain out of his rear end on the floor. The bus had stopped.

He looked around the dark, narrow, room at the sleeping forms of Peter, Angelique, and Francis still curled up in their beds. Peter had spent the past day irritating actual nations, Angelique went swimming with the fish, Francis hit on anything that breathed oxygen, and Alfred-

Where was he?

Arthur stood up and stared at the young nation's empty bed. The covers were made and his pajamas were folded on his pillow. _If only he were that neat and tidy before the war... _Arthur shook his head. Vacation was not a time to be thinking about wars.

Arthur looked up at the clock. 7:45. A time he might wake up on a normal day, but not on vacation. Especially not Alfred. They were lucky they got the man out of bed before noon yesterday.

A thud of a door shutting came from the bottom floor. Arthur quickly got up and ran down the stairs to find the bus driver going back to his seat.

"Where is he going?" Arthur asked him.

"Another bus," The young man seemed startled momentarily but Arthur didn't stop to ask more questions. Instead he ran out the door after his ex-colony.

* * *

**So I had originally planned to put out 9 and 10 as one giant chapter 9. Unfortunately, the chapter 10 part was harder to put together than originally anticipated and so in the end I just decided to divide it and release it that way. Chapter 10 shouldn't take too much longer (hopefully) and will be the actual end to Part I. I am so insanely excited to start Part II that it's ridiculous - I've got the entire thing planned out and you can expect joke after joke after joke after joke after...you get the point. **

**Anyway, reviews are much loved ^-^**


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